F. W. vom Scheidt is a director of an international investment firm. He works and travels in the world’s capital markets, and makes his home in Toronto, Canada.

He is the author of Coming For Money, a fascinating and highly readable literary novel about the world of global finance … and a human quest for success, understanding and love.

More details are available at: http://www.bluebutterflybooks.ca/titles/money.html.

Q: Welcome to Beyond the Books, F. W.  Can we start out by telling us whether you are published for the first time or are you multi-published?

A: This is my first published novel.

More accurately, it is the first writing that I have wanted to publish for wide circulation.

Q: What was the name of your very first book regardless of whether it was published or not and, if not published, why?

A: I have always written.

Because I have an encompassing business career, I suppose I have not had the same opportunity to organize a novel, and I suppose I have not felt the same need to publish, as many other writers.

Q: For your first published book, how many rejections did you go through before you either found a mainstream publisher, self-published it, or paid a vanity press to publish it?

A: I suppose I did not really go down the traditional road of submission and rejection.

Upon completion, I retained a professional editor for final proofreading; the editor showed the manuscript to a publisher; and the publisher accepted it.

Q: How did the rejections make you feel and what did you do to overcome the blows?

A:  My work in all things has always flowed from a great deal of creativity.

If you are creative, you will always meet rejection.

Dealing with it requires the deep belief that rises from an examined life.

Q: When your first book was published, who published it and why did you choose them?

A: Blue Butterfly Books accepted my manuscript for publication.

As incredulous as it may seem, I would not have published with them simply because they offered me a contract.

Upon introduction, I was greatly impressed.

The company is founded on the mission statement of the publisher, Dr. Patrick Boyer, to bring to the market “interesting and important stories that are well-written for a wide audience.”

All facets of the organization are entrepreneurial, and the people have great energy and dedication.

They publish some engaging and thought provoking non-fiction, especially in politics, public policy and biography; and they are building a selective list of high quality fiction. Their books have been very well received.

The website is: www.bluebutterflybooks.ca.

Q: How did it make you feel to become published for the first time and how did you celebrate?

A: I write from personal experience; I write from what I know best.

In Coming For Money I’ve written as truthfully as possible of the world of international finance — not with the over dramatization so common in film and television, but with an intimate telling through a first-person narrative … of what it can be like to labour in the world of money spinning … of how the money’s immense leverage for triumph or disaster doesn’t so much corrupt people as corrupt the way they treat each other … of how the relentless demands of the money so often deprive you of sufficient time and energy to live through the events of your emotional and interior life.

Yet I have tried to tell this story in a way that will let others in our increasingly isolated society know that they are not alone. I have also tried to say something about the value of not surrendering to the seduction of victimizing others as a defence against being victimized. In writing a narrative about not giving up, I attempted to capture something true and evocative about how all journeys toward the light begin in darkness. And I have offered readers some assurance that, of such journeys, they can become restored to wholeness.

So there was a certain satisfaction in knowing that work would reach others.

I celebrated by giving the first copy to someone special.

Q: What was the first thing you did as for as promotion when you were published for the first time?

A: I retained Pump Up Your Promotion.

Q: If you had to do it over again, would you have chosen another route to be published?

A: No.

Q: Have you been published since then and how have you grown as an author?

A: I have not been published since; I am working on my next book.

I’m not sure how I would define growing as an author … but, as a human being, I try to grow in small way every day.

Q: Looking back since the early days when you were trying to get published, what do you think you could have done differently to speed things up?  What kind of mistakes could you have avoided?

A: I would not have changed anything.

Q: If you could have chosen another profession, what would that profession be?

A: I have chosen another profession.

Q: Would you give up being an author for that profession or have you combined the best of both worlds?

A:  I have combined the best of both worlds.

Q: How do you see yourself in ten years?

A: Never slowing down.

Q: Any final words for writers who dream of being published one day?

A: Write.